


Walking In The Crystal's Light IV (FFXIV Writing Challenge 2020)

by lilithqueen



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Au Ra Raen (Final Fantasy XIV), Au Ra Xaela (Final Fantasy XIV), Duskwight Elezen (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Garleans (Final Fantasy XIV), Hyur (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te (Final Fantasy XIV), Multi, Summoner Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 14,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26753548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen
Summary: FFXIVWrite's fourth year, and my fourth run of prompt fills! Including but not limited to: Imperials, ex-Imperials, the people who hate them, sad viera, tired elezen, and some incredibly nerdy lizards.
Relationships: Emmanellain de Fortemps/Warrior of Light, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 3





	1. Crux (Portia Brewster)

**Author's Note:**

> I also have a tumblr! come find me at [ffxiv-swarm.](http://ffxiv_swarm.tumblr.com/)

It should have been easier, she thought. After all, it was a matter of life and death. If any of these Eorzeans found out who she was, _what_ she was...well, she didn’t like her chances. There weren’t many places left to run.

(She’d done enough running. She’d cowered in the bunkers of the Praetorium like a dog, too terrified to even lift her sword, while her friends—her comrades— _died_ around her, while they fell screaming and she could do _nothing,_ how could she fight while the castrum was burning around her and their leaders fed them to the flames—and then her world had turned white-hot, and she’d found the strength to stand and the weakness to flee.)

The hat had taken no thought at all. She’d just picked it up, set it on her head, and pulled the brim low. Lots of people wore wide-brimmed hats in Thanalan, the better to protect their heads from the thrice-cursed sun. She looked down at her own hands—small, but calloused and strong from her years in the XIVth. When you were stranded behind enemy lines with a legion that had been dubbed traitors to the Emperor, you wound up doing a lot more manual labor than you’d signed up for.

That was probably for the best. She doubted third assistant notaries were much in demand in this savage country. In order to survive here, she’d have to shed her past like an old coat. Throw _oen Gallius_ away with her sword and shield and iron knuckles, and become someone else.

(Take my hand, Portia, and become my bride.)

(Lift your head, bas Gallius, and become a soldier of the Empire.)

(Drop your weapon, oen Gallius, and become—)

She put her fingers to the thin carbon fiber cord coiled under her shirt, feeling the reassuring bumps of her engagement ring and the shard of Laetissimus, as long as her little finger, that were all the Empire had let her keep of Petros. They weren’t things a traveler, a day laborer, a poor Hyuran woman would have. And that was what she would have to be, now that everything had burned around her.

The desert sun beat down on her as she fixed her gaze to the road. The chocobos pulling the cart she’d hitched a ride on  _warked_ softly to each other. The driver—a merchant, he’d said, bringing vegetables to the Sultana’s table—hummed a tune as they trundled down the road. 

By the time she reached Ul’dah, she would be Portia Brewster. She had no other choice.


	2. Sway (Pavo Rabanastre)

There should have been music. There should have been his people around him, his brothers and uncles and grandfathers. There should have been a flat clearing, pounded down by generations of feet moving in unison.

There was only him.

He was no longer Sigri, son of Hjordis daughter of Aud, a child of the Whispering Stars. He was Pavo Rabanastre, a soldier of the Resistance, and he stood with his hands empty, watching the stars. There would be no bells for him, no feather-fans or gleaming knives. His comrades in rebellion had been asked to stay away, to trust that there was something he had to do alone tonight. If they spied on him anyway, he would be able to do nothing except scold, and never mind that this was a sacred night where any of his people would have _blinded_ an outsider.

The stars above him limned his ears in silver light—the Weaver, the Nightbird, the Spearpoint. He rolled his shoulders, shifted his weight from foot to foot, and closed his eyes. He was the only one who could dance this, and if he did it wrong…

No. He cleared his mind from doubts, lifted one bare foot, and stepped into the circle of small rocks he’d laid out in the courtyard. His gods and his ancestors would demand nothing less than his best; he was no tottering, hesitant child. Not anymore. He was a wind-tracer of the Miret-Moor, tattoos or no, and even though he’d never live up to the promise his grandmother had seen in the marks on his skin he _would_ honor his birthplace.

And so he danced.


	3. Muster (Tiber Gallius)

The Resistance airship was packed. Tiber stood in the back of the ranks and tried to focus on his breathing, on the hum of the magitek and the pulse of ceruleum under his feet. It wasn’t helping. He liked people and didn’t mind crowds, but it was one thing to be in a crowd and another to be the sole Garlean in a ship full of Resistance soldiers, even if the Scion insignias on his armor had stopped anyone from doing more than giving him dirty looks. _Especially_ when everyone there had signed up to retake Terncliff from the Empire while the G-Warrior dealt with the Sapphire Weapon.

Never mind that his name only hadn’t been first on the list because he hadn’t wanted to knock Private Nanaliga over on the way there. They heard his voice and his name, and that was all they would ever hear.

 _Until I prove myself. Again._ Ghimlyt had been his crucible, but Ghimlyt had been chaos. Nobody had cared then whether the Scions’ Garlean was pulling his weight. But Terncliff would be a smaller stage, and he would shine all the brighter for it. (He _would_ shine. Doing anything else was unthinkable.)

“Listen up, troops!”

The mission commander was speaking. Tiber wished it had been Maxima—surely if anyone deserved a command post, it was him—but the rangy miqo’te had enough scuffs and scars in her armor to suggest she knew what she was doing. Her voice rang out above the murmur and brought it to silence as she continued. “We’re due to make landfall in half a bell. Make your final gear checks now, because the Imperials damn sure ain’t gonna wait for you to put your smalls on! While the Ironworks’... _G-Warrior_ takes care of the Weapon, we’ll be fightin’ on the ground with the sea at our backs!” Her gaze swept the room, and Tiber unconsciously straightened up. “I know _all_ of you will make the Resistance proud.”

She caught his eye. He swallowed, hard, and nodded.

And then she was glaring at the rest of the hold. “Well? Why don’t I see you lot checkin’ your kits?”

The airship broke out in a flood of clattering armor and jingling metal. Tiber sank onto the nearest bench with his gunblade across his knees. He could clean and assemble it in his sleep, and so his mind was free to turn over the sergeant’s words. _I’ll make you proud._ He closed his eyes. _Portia. Mama. Vivian. Q’yala. Miss Soleil. You gave me a chance, and I’ll prove myself worthy of it._

A song slid into his head.  _Children of steel, of fire forged…_

And now it was going to be stuck there. Wonderful. There was only one thing to do; only one remedy that had ever worked for him.

He started to hum it.


	4. Clinch (Erasmus eir Niveus)

They ran into their first major problem after the airship he’d...ahem, _requisitioned_...ran out of ceruleum. He’d planned for that, with an eye on the fuel meter these past ten malms, and when it started beeping he managed to steer it to a gentle stop in a grassy field. Barely even a bump!...well, maybe a bit of a bump. Mrs. bas Ferri’s youngest granddaughter had started crying. (She was two. He wasn’t even mad.) But they’d all made it out alright, and loaded whatever they couldn’t live without on the back of old bas Laeops’ teleoceras before continuing their journey west.

A journey he _still_ couldn’t really believe he was making. He’d had a good life in Garlemald! Sure, he’d hated his job and most of his coworkers with a burning passion, but he’d been paid well, had his own apartment, could afford to eat out and visit the theater when he wanted. If he’d been sensible he would have stayed, and hang the rest.

But little Antoninus in II-R had been shot dead in the street for staring at a soldier too long.

But Caelia in IV-L had screamed at him to _find my husband, are you a Frumentarius or not,_ and he’d looked—he’d _looked_ —and Harenata, coolly satisfied, had shown him what was left.

But Marinus in V-R would never walk straight again.

But.

But _Fury fuck him,_ these were his neighbors, and he hadn’t spent his years in Garlemald under a rock. You shared what you could with everyone under your roof and trusted that they’d do the same for you, whether you needed a few gil towards rent or someone to carry your groceries—especially if you didn’t have a gens or a House to count on. Mrs. bas Ferri had given him more leftovers than he could count, and Taninetta in V-L was always up for sharing her pharmaceutical stash. The least he could do to pay them back was to get everyone out of the country alive.

Which was how he’d gotten here, in a smoky shack, negotiating with a cold-eyed miqo’te for a guide through the mountains.

“Look, mate, I’ve got about forty-five people with me, we’re all freezin’ our balls off. We gotta get movin’!”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “So you came...here. To Caprina lands. On purpose. With children and old people. Are you  _insane?”_

He took a deep breath. He wished he had a cigarette. He wished Audentis was here. “...I ain’t. But Zenos is. You gotta know he’s won the succession war in the capital, aye? Slaughtered every bleedin’ one of the Populares, him an’ that shadowless friend of his. It’d be suicide to stay, an’ I ain’t keen on dying.” Truth, as far as he was concerned, was a bendy thing. Now that he needed it, it seemed to be slipping out of his grasp. “C’mon, lady. _Please.”_

She studied him for a long moment. And then, seemingly coming to a decision, she held out a hand. “We have a deal.”

He shook it. For the first time since leaving the city, he felt the knot of tension between his shoulders ease. _Maybe we’ll all make it._ Though he hadn’t prayed in years, some long-buried Halonic instinct surfaced. _Fury, guide us to safety. Bring us to a new home._


	5. Matter of Fact (Evrard Briardionne)

“We can’t afford this.”

Saying it out loud didn’t make Evrard feel any better. He dropped his head into his hands, squeezing his eyes shut. That didn’t help either. The lines of his ledger were imprinted on the inside of his eyelids, the damning evidence that Vidofnir’s Wings weren’t flying as high as he’d hoped (thought) (prayed for.) That could have been dealt with on its own—he could easily skip a few meals, cut back on lighting, spend more time haggling prices down. But there were his comrades to consider too, and people who depended on them. He could hardly ask Enkhtuya or Harumi for an advance on their rent to pay the debts he’d incurred helping Ala Mhigo rebuild.

 _I thought I was helping. Fury save me, I thought I was helping._ The knowledge that the children of Ala Gannha would not now starve, that their families would sleep in warm beds come the winter, was cold comfort next to the certain knowledge that, unless he did _something_ , the mortgage on his own house couldn’t possibly be paid this month. _Has Busari realized it yet? Gods, I don’t want to see his face—_

The clanking of plate. Heavy footfalls. Further clanking as Busari started peeling his armor off behind him.  _Speak of the dragon, and it swoops down._ He couldn’t bear to look at him. The table, now; the table was safe to look at. The grain of the wood had a knot in it he’d never noticed before.

His lover’s voice was a quiet rumble. “Evrard?”

He winced. “Yes?”

“You’re upset.”

He sucked in a breath.  _Hiding it won’t make it go away._ In lieu of words, he shoved the ledger at his beloved’s face. “Here. The last few lines.”

Busari scanned it slowly. Evrard heard his tail swish against the floor once, twice. Finally, he spoke. “Is this all?”

He nodded. He didn’t know what to say.  _I’m sorry. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how many corners we can cut. I’m sorry._

“This is what’s got you upset?”

_You have eyes, don’t you?!_ He bit it back. It would only make both of them feel bad. “You can see why I’m concerned.”

“Evrard.” A clawed hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he looked up into his lover’s face. Busari’s golden gaze was kind but firm, slit-pupilled eyes sharp. “We are _adventurers._ Take your sword and come with me next time, and we’ll have enough gil to sort this out.”

He took one breath. Another.  _We are adventurers._ It was so simple, put like that. They were adventurers, therefore they could solve this.  _They would solve this. We are adventurers. And I...I have spent too long with my wings tucked._

He felt himself smile. “I will. Thank you, love.”

They would be just fine.


	6. Drums in the Deep (Ritanelle Soleil)

Afterwards, Ritanelle couldn’t say what had drawn her to the ruins. True, they were _Gelmorran_ ruins, but that didn’t mean much in the Shroud. There were a lot of Gelmorran ruins, some of them in much better condition and more easily explored without the risk of her breaking her neck. And this one had been a damn _trek;_ she’d followed a trail of half-eroded flagstones ever deeper into the woods, one hand on the smooth wood of her mask in a desperate attempt to keep the crawling terror of trees away. (She _loved_ Rrisya. The miqo’te had reacted to her return from another world by lifting her off the ground with a hug, setting her back down, and immediately handing her a freshly spellcarved mask.) But she’d kept walking, and now she stood at a closed stone door that slid gently open at her touch.

She inhaled slowly. Well-maintained, then. _Inhabited?_

She flipped open her grimoire and whispered, “Ifrit.” Her egi would light her way.

The tunnel beyond sloped steadily downward, curving into a spiral; her hand on the wall traced a continuous carving of bats. Ifrit-egi’s flames made them dance, flickering as she breathed. She’d been in her fair share of Gelmorran ruins, but never anything like this. Under her feet, someone had swept the floor clean. 

_People live here._ She breathed out, closing her eyes.  _Mother Hydaelyn, let them be friendly._ The idea of them knowing about the civilization whose ruins they slept in was too wonderful to even contemplate. If she got her hopes up only to have them crushed, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand it.

_Boom._

It rumbled like thunder, just on the edge of her hearing. She froze, noting only distantly that the ground had leveled out and Ifrit-egi’s light was suggesting a larger cavern in front of her.  _Drums?_

_Boom._

_Yep. Definitely drums._ Motioning Ifrit-egi behind her, she inched forward. As she thought, the hallways did open up; she stood in an antechamber etched with sprouting mushrooms and owls in flight, with benches along the walls covered in carved flowers. Unlike the other examples of Gelmorran art she’d seen so far (what had been left of them, anyway, after time and Gridania had taken their toll), these had been painted and inlaid with colored stones; upon closer examination, they proved to be the tops of lidded chests. Crystals had been embedded in the walls, bathing everything in dim yellow light. If she’d had the time, she could have spent bells in here alone.  _Not that it would tell me anythin’ much without the Echo. Still, just to sit and think...that would be nice._

But the door at the other end of the room was open, an irresistible yawning void. It could contain  _anything._ Jewels. Art.  _People._ She stepped through.

The cavern beyond was much larger than the one she’d left. Squinting, she could make out inert crystals set high into the nearest walls, meant to illuminate the painted reliefs of serpents amidst flowers that stretched into the darkness. Under her feet, the floor had been swept clean; as she turned her attention to it, she realized that it had been carved as well, the forms indistinct. Pulling off her glove, she knelt down to trace it.

The pain pulled her under before she could move.

_Tap. Tap. Hard-soled boots, sensibly formed but well-made, and the man who wears them is familiar in a way she can’t place—amber-eyed, with long dark hair and the strong gray cast to his skin that lets her know he’s one of her people. His clothes have been cut down and mended, but they gleam with golden thread and sewn-in-jewels. Grief rolls off him like fog._

_The woman whose hands he clasps isn’t much better off. She’s even more richly dressed than him—the combs in her hair are silver, and her heavy gown is black silk—but she looks as though she’s going to cry. They could be twins, thinks the part of Rita that is still herself. Leather satchels pile up by her feet, and a carved stone chest floats gently by her elbow._

“ _Why must you leave? Enguerault can live here, can’t he?”_

_She swallows visibly. Looks down at her feet. Shakes her head. The regret almost chokes her. “He can’t. He can’t. So I’ll go live with him instead.”_

_He squeezes her hands once and drops them. For a moment she thinks he’ll step away—and then he moves forward, pulling his sister into a tight hug. “I’ll miss you.”_

“ _I’ll miss you!” There are tears now, but her voice is resolute. “I’ll visit when I can. My children will know their uncle and their blood. I won’t let us be forgotten.”_

“And who the bloody fuck are you?!”

She resurfaced so fast she was left gasping, blinking in the sudden light of activated crystals. Ifrit-egi was a silent fury next to her, kept from a rampage only because the dozen or so spear-wielding Duskwights around her hadn’t come any closer.  _Oh, bugger._ For a small eternity, she couldn’t find words.  _I was just looking around_ didn’t seem likely to help. She was sure she could take them all if she had to, but—

A voice rang out from behind the two burliest ones. “Let me see her.” As they stepped aside, an old man came forward. Sixty years separated them, but she recognized the man from her Echo instantly. His hair still had a few stubborn strands of reddish-brown clinging to life in it. 

He studied her for a moment; when he spoke, his voice was soft and reassuring as though she was a frightened animal. “Which is the day that saw you born? What is the name your mother gave you?”

“I—“ She swallowed hard. “The twenty-seventh day of the fourth umbral moon. And my...my name is…” _Ritanelle Soleil—no. No, the name my mother gave me. The name I threw away for my own safety._ “It was Rinette Habelliard. But it’s Rita now, thanks.”

“Rinette,” the old man said wonderingly. “Habelliard. Your mother, young Rita—is her name Pierrine?”

Slowly, she nodded. She wasn’t expecting to see his amber eyes glisten with tears. 

“Your mother’s mother was Ninetta,” he murmured. He bent down, and she let him fold her hands in his. They were large and square, scarred and callused. He was missing the first joint of his left little finger. “And you...you are my grand-niece.”

Well, grand. Now  _she_ was the one blinking back tears.  _Grandmum’s little brother…?_ Between one breath and the next it hit her, and her battle against the waterworks was lost.  _Does he have children? Grandchildren of his own? A family. I have a family._

“Welcome to the Serpent’s Heart Deepcroft. Welcome home.”


	7. Nonagenarian (Rrisya Otombe)

“Aunt Rrisya, will you tell us a story?”

The ancient miqo’te woman rocking in the wheelchair isn’t their aunt, of course, but their great-aunt. She’s watched the Otombe grow and change through the years, transforming from the dozen or so left in the wake of the Calamity to something worthy of actually being called a clan again. Technically she’s the Matriarch, but...well, she’s always been happier simply being Auntie and Grandmum. Though she can no longer race through the treetops, her spear and her mind are still sharp.

And she smiles at the children gathering around her, dark face a mass of wrinkles. “What do you want to hear, my little coeurls?”

“Something scary!”

“An adventure story!”

“I want to hear something fantastic!”

“Something true.” And the girl who speaks is the favorite Rrisya will officially deny having, the youngest daughter of her youngest niece, fearless and bold.

She taps a claw against her lips, thinking hard. “Something...something true. Hmmm. Have I told you about the slaying of the shadowless ones?”

Silence. Silence, and wide-eyed glances; they’ve heard all about the great battles that happened before they were born, of course, the reason none of them need ever fear another Calamity, but none of the grown-ups ever want to talk about exactly how it all happened. It’s her little favorite who breaks the silence. “Were you _there,_ Auntie?”

Now there’s another smile, but it shows fangs—a reminder that when she was young, she was not just their soft great-aunt who sews them adorable stuffed animals but a fierce huntress of their clan. “My dearest friend was. It is something scary, something fantastic, something true—and yes, Mrii’li, it is a great adventure! Now, I _believe_ the way these stories _traditionally_ start is...ah, yes.”

“Once upon a time...”


	8. Clamor (Shinju Toyotama)

The docks were loud. They were _always_ loud, but today seemed especially bad. Shinju didn’t have to look long to figure out the reason why; the _Summer Wind_ had docked again, bringing its cargo of Doman silks, Nagxian jewelry, and a tight-knit crowd of work-seeking Dalmascan refugees. If she’d been on duty today, they would have been her problem to deal with, and she thought briefly of volunteering to help out.

Joyous cries reached her horns, and she shook her head. Her coworkers could handle it. And besides, it was her day off. She only got one a week, and she’d been spending her idle hours thinking about what to do with it. (Her parents, she knew, would have told her to spend the day studying. Or working. Or sitting quietly and reflecting. Her parents were on the other side of the world, and she no longer had to listen to them.) She could do whatever she wanted—see a play, maybe, or go shopping.

She kept walking along the docks. If she turned _here,_ and took _this_ alley...yes, it was quiet, and there was a pier with steps leading down to the water. It had probably been intended for a small boat, but it was deserted now.

She unrolled the small scroll she kept at her hip, feeling the aetheric ink crackle with her pulse as she summoned Hisui. The carbuncle popped into reality with a delighted chatter, and she couldn’t help but smile. “You watch my things, alright? Mama’s going to go swimming.”

Its voice was an excited squeak. _Go swimming with Mama!_

She shook her head. “No, sweetheart. You have to be good.”

_Aww…_

It was the work of a moment to step out of her shoes and set them aside with her bag and anything that absolutely couldn’t get wet, and then she was finally, _finally_ in the water.

She could still hear the docks, albeit faintly. Still, it was an irritation on what should have been a peaceful day. Today of all days, she didn’t want to be bothered. She didn’t want to have to  _think._

And so she dove down into the silence.


	9. Lush (Ritanelle Soleil/Emmanellain de Fortemps)

“I,” she announced to the room at large, “am drunk.” She had to be drunk. You didn’t down two bottles of Ishgardian mead and stay _sober._

Emmanellain hummed quietly from his spot on the floor; he’d curled up on the rug two hours ago with his head on her knee and hearts in his eyes, and seemed content to stay there even when she’d swung her feet up onto the chaise and stretched out with one slipper dangling off her toes. “I noticed. Another glass, old girl?”

She thought about it. “Hmmm…” It was tempting. Their reunion had been giddy, frantic with joy and relief; they’d barely even made it to the bed. Only hunger and thirst had induced either of them to leave it, and she was still sort of in the mood for more refreshments. Emmanellain had not been at all shy about showing her how much she’d been missed while on the First. “Maybe.” Either way, the couch was getting boring, and the bearskin rug looked much more inviting. Accordingly, she rolled over, pouring herself clumsily down onto the rough fur in a tangle of limbs.

...And immediately listed sideways onto Emm’s lap, dizzy. “Oh, wow. Alright, I am  _really_ drunk.”

Her lover snickered, not unkindly. “Maybe I ought to cut you off. No more for you!”

She pouted up at him. “I kill  _gods._ For a  _day job._ I have crossed  _worlds._ I can say when I’ve had enough!”

His voice was unmistakably fond. “If you can sit up and drink it, I will see you have as much as you want.”

Sitting up. Ugh. Her silk robe was deliriously soft, the fur under her was warm, and Emm’s lap made a really very excellent pillow. She made a face. “Pour it into my mouth, eh?”

Oh, he was twining a lock of her hair around his fingers. That was nice. Irritatingly, though, his other hand was  _not_ holding a bottle of mead. “You have to sit up first, darling.” And then there was that grin, the one she’d missed so much while she was away. Nobody on the First had had a grin like that. “Wouldn’t you do the same for me? You’re always fretting about the state of my liver.”

“Someone should,” she huffed at him. “Crystal Mum knows you don’t, between th’ good booze an’ the way you lot eat!”

Despite her huffing, he moved from playing with her hair to stroking it, which was—very nice, actually. Soothing. It kind of made her want a nap. His voice lowered, ears drooping slightly at the tips. “...I missed it while you were gone. I even missed your _salads.”_

She blinked up at him. “You hate salad.” As far as she could tell, it was an Ishgardian thing; they didn’t seem to regard anything as food unless it was piping hot and served with bacon, cheese, or both. Emmanellain, despite his many other fine qualities, was no exception.

“But I love _you.”_

Silence. She could hear each individual crackle of flame in the hearth. She could hear Emm’s heartbeat. She could hear her  _own_ heartbeat, hammering against her ribs. Emm was red all the way up to the tips of his ears and down over his chest, and she knew he hadn’t meant to say that. Knowing it didn’t make her stomach untwist itself from its knot, though.  _He loves me. He’s probably drunk, there’s no bloody way he means it, but he’s sayin’—_

She breathed out slowly. “...I reckon we’ve both had enough to drink.”


	10. Avail (Evrard Briardionne)

Vidofnir’s Wings, in the person of one Evrard Briardionne and his disgruntled assistants, have been parked under an awning in Pearl Lane for the better part of a day handing out pamphlets along with heavy, filling flatbreads stuffed with vegetables and unnamed meats. (Evrard is still proud of the pamphlets. Poor or no, refugees or no, these people have legal rights and chances for gainful employment, and he’ll see that they  _know_ that.) He’d offered to help with the food, but they all knew it was halfhearted; he’s much better with paperwork, and so while Q’kerahn and Harumi dole out hot meals and advice, he is on a too-low folding chair wrangling reams of ink and parchment. Ealdgyth needs to know what her landlord’s handed her, J’verin wants a better eye to go over his employment contract at a local brothel, Nanase doesn’t understand the process of rental agreements in Ul’dah…

The awning isn’t enough. In between clients for the moment, he closes his eyes in hopes that it will stem the rising ache making its way through his skull. He’s grateful to be sitting down, but it’s so godsdamned  _hot._ He sweated through his thin shirt bells ago, and constant sips of watered fruit juice only help so much. He doesn’t even have the energy to cast anything to cool down. _And,_ in addition to everything else, his back is killing him.  _Why did I agree to this…? This isn’t what I wanted._

He can be petty here, in the privacy of his own mind. He’d formed his free company with the idea of...well. Something more spectacular than this. He’d set out to become an adventurer, by the Fury. If he’s going to slowly melt into the Ul’dahn sun, he could at least be doing something more exciting and less mind-numbing than translating legal jargon.

It’s important. He knows that. From the smallest stones are castles raised, so saith the Enchiridion. He certainly shouldn’t complain; he knows intimately just how much worse his life could be. 

But he scratches miserably under his hat and wishes nonetheless that he was anywhere else.

“Hey, boss, we’re running low on the meat—“

“Add more greens, then!” It comes out sharper than he intended, and he feels worse immediately. _Fury, grant me patience, for we all suffer._

His ears prick up at the sound of a commotion, and he’s half out of his chair by the time he registers what it even is.  _There,_ a terrified young woman sprinting away— _there,_ a pair of sneering louts strolling after her and  _laughing,_ as though they know she can’t run far.

“Watch the stall, please.” He barely recognizes his own voice with so much steel in it.

“ _Help!”_

Rage surges like a tide at the fear in her voice—that anyone would so dare to lay hands on another, that nobody else moves in her defense.

He’s already running. In his mind, a dragon’s shadow falls.


	11. Ultracrepidarian (Rrisya Otombe)

They say the elementals protect you. They say that mere mortals can’t even communicate with the will of the forest, never mind appease it. They say that only the Padjals can save you. They say that if you transgress against the elementals’ will, what happens to you will be a fate worse than death. They say that you deserve it.

_They_ are very rarely Keepers, and never Otombe.

Rrisya sits with her little brother, listening to him recount his lessons in the Stillglade Fane. His teachers say he’ll be one of the greatest conjurers Gridania has ever seen next to the horned ones. He’ll be great, she knows. But whether that greatness will be for the city…

He cuts himself off when he realizes she’s stopped responding, head tilting as he takes in her flattened ears and twitchy tail. “Did I say something wrong?”

Mum gets mad when she lectures on Gridania’s faults within city limits, so she shakes her head. “You’re getting to be a very skilled spellcaster. I’m proud of you.”

“Hmm.” His own ears twist as he drops his gaze. “They want me to stay on at the Fane.” She watches him take a deep breath, watches him straighten up. He’s been taller than her since last year, but now he looks like a man grown instead of a scrawny boy. His eyes, ice-blue instead of her moon-white, are hard with resolve. “I don’t want to.”

She stays very quiet, and waits. She’s good at waiting.

“They—they’re all good _conjurers,_ of course, but then they start talking about the forest and—Riss, how the hells can people so smart be so _stupid?!_ I tried to tell them about how Grandmum and our people have been livin’ with the trees since before Gridania was two logs stacked together and they—and they patted my head! Like a kid!” He’s up and gesturing now, tail lashing. “And they want me to _work with them!_ I’d rather—I’d rather run off to the forest forever!”

“You can.” She reaches for his hands, and he lets her take them. She can’t help the smile that shows her fangs. “You think Grandmum wouldn’t welcome another shaman into the family?”

He’s not looking at her. “I’m not—too old? Too much of a city cat?”

Her heart clenches painfully in her chest. This has to be her fault somehow, for throwing herself wholeheartedly into the ways of the forest and never looking to see if her siblings wanted to follow after all. Most people didn’t decide their life’s path at twelve. “You will  _never_ be too old to take a place in  _your clan,_ Hahki’a Otombe.”

He swallows, tail flicking—but at least he doesn’t look upset anymore. “And I’ll be able to—to use my skills to help us? And get the tattoos and everything?”

“I’ll sew you a feather cloak myself.”


	12. Tooth and Nail (Gantsetseg Bayaqud, Nero tol Scaeva)

“Ah, but I haven’t introduced myself! Nero tol Scaeva, at your service.”

There was a general clamor around her—Cid, Biggs, and Wedge outraged, Rita tense, G’raha Tia wincing, the two Allagan scholars confused—but Gan didn’t care. They didn’t matter. All that mattered was the pounding of her heart, the rasp of air through her lungs building to a hissing shriek, the tension in her muscles begging to be unleashed. The world around her faded, blue crystals and violet mist leaching to gray at the edge of her vision.

All she saw in front of her was  _red._

Clanging metal under her feet, screams of the wounded and dying rattling her horns. The burn and reek of hot ceruleum; the cleaner, electrifying scent of spellfire. Shooting down one Garlean—another—another—draw and loose, ignoring the ache in her shoulders because if she faltered, those around her would die. Knowing that every Garlean she killed bore the shapes of those who had slain her tribesmates and stolen her from her home—knowing that she couldn’t bring them back, but she could avenge them. Leaping up to a high rampart to take aim at a reaper, the pilot’s expression wide-eyed as she killed him. Something—she never did catch what—exploding, searing the scales from her forearms when she threw her arms up to protect her face. 

She’d heard that voice then, distorted as it was by the stupid helmet. It was still the same—still the smirking, arrogant, entitled voice of a man who thought the world owed him favors. And now it had a face.

She dropped her bow and launched herself at him, the rage in her throat ripping its way free as a roar. Articulate threats were unnecessary when your foe wasn’t going to live long enough to be scared of them; he might have been a tribunus, but  _she_ was a warrior of the Bayaqud.

_No weapons. No finesse. I am going to tear—you—limb—from—limb!_

She was in midair when a heavy weight on her back knocked her to the ground. When she twisted around like a wildcat to claw at whatever it was—whatever had  _dared_ interrupt her vengeance—Biggs yelped in pain. 

“Grab her arms!”

“I’ve got her—ow, bugger, watch ‘er tail spikes!”

“I’ve got it!” That was Wedge, bravely throwing himself at the end of her tail and pinning it with his entire body weight.

“ _I_ think you should let her go, personally.”

Letting her go sounded like an excellent idea. Ritanelle was a damn _genius,_ currently staring down the pile of Ironworkers with a voice as cold as a mountain stream. Gan twisted fruitlessly in an effort to throw Cid’s weight off her legs. “C’mon—“

Cid sighed. “He’s a pain in all our arses—“

“He should be _dead!_ Let me up!”

“—but he’s a godsdamned genius when it comes to Allag, and the Syrcus Tower here won’t wait. We need him alive.” After a moment, he added, “With all his extremities attached.”

“I am going to gouge out his third eye and make a _necklace,”_ Gan hissed. They still hadn’t let her up. She was increasingly tempted to start biting.

“...Please do not.”

Rita squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her forehead. “You’re  _sure_ we need him in one piece?”

Cid eyed Nero, who had very sensibly frozen in place well out of range of Gan’s hands but very stupidly  _not_ out of range of Rita’s spells. “...He’ll probably be more useful that way.”

_He would be the most useful as dog meat,_ Gan thought viciously. 

Rita heaved a huge sigh. “You. Nero tol Scaeva. You put one toe out of line, and I will immobilize you and give you to Gantsetseg over here, who does  _not like_ Imperials and has a truly disturbing variety of ways to make you regret your life choices—this description, you understand, coming from someone who melts her enemies’ lungs out for a living. Got me?” At his enthusiastic nodding, she turned her focus to Gan. “Gan, I want his head on a plate too, but  _please_ restrain yourself until we’re finished with all...this.” Her hand gesture encompassed the entire Crystal Tower and dismissed it as not worth her time, all in one motion. (Behind her, G’raha Tia made an indignant huff until she added, “Look, the tower is bloody fascinatin’ but the defense system is  _not.”)_

Gan bucked her entire body, digging her horn into the dirt. It didn’t help; Biggs weighed a tonze. “...Fine. Alright. Just let  _go_ of me!” And if her voice cracked on something like a sob, full of pain and rage, nobody commented on it.

They let her go. She scrambled to her feet, ungainly with suppressed fury, and met Nero tol Scaeva’s nervous eyes.  _One day I’ll kill you. I’ll have your bones for a necklace and your skull for a drinking cup._

And then she took a deep breath and turned away to accept the comforting arm Rita laid across her shoulders.  _One day. Soon. But not yet._


	13. Filius Ferro (Tiber Gallius)

_You are_ ~~_a soldier_ ~~ _a_ swordsman _of Garlemald,_ _a son of steel and fire, forged in the heart of the mountain_ _, and these are the things you know. These are the things you carry in your heart when all else lies broken at your feet._

Draw your sword,  ~~ pyr ~~ Gallius.

Meet your partner’s eyes.

_If the mountain dreamed, it would dream of its heart afire._

First guard. Step. Turn.

Back.

Strike.

_If fire dreamed, it would dream of the forge._

Second guard. Parry.

Watch the light gleam on the edge of the blade, radiant as a sunrise.

Circle.

_If the forge dreamed, it would dream of iron._

Now your partner lunges, and you hold. You  _hold._

Breathe.

_If iron dreamed, it would dream of steel._

Step and turn and—there.

Under their guard, an opening.

Twist their blade out of their hand; sweep their legs out from under them.

_If steel dreamed, it would dream of the sword._

Help them to their feet.

Begin your dance again.


	14. Part (Pavo Rabanastre)

“You get seven years. And then you’ll bring him back to me.”

Sigri, child of Hjordis, rubbed at the freshly inked arrowhead on the bridge of his nose. The tattoos were important, of course—they told your ancestors who you were, so you could be reunited in the afterlife—but none of the adults had ever told him how much they _itched_ when they started healing _._ At least he had seven years until he got the next ones, when he came back to the Woods a proper man of the Whispering Stars. Maybe by then he’d forget how much they’d hurt.

His mother was still staring down his new teacher, orange eyes narrowed suspiciously. At least she didn’t still have her ears pinned back, like she’d done when Kalju had called his name from the lineup after the trials and asked if he wanted to be his student. Sigri _still_ didn’t understand that part. Kalju had done everything just the same as everyone else’s uncles and brothers, kneeling and everything, and nobody _else_ seemed to dislike him. Even Fryda, who didn’t like anyone, had waved cheerily at him.

Kalju seemed entirely unperturbed, though he shifted from foot to foot. Then again, he had the same “climbing feet” that Sigri did—long toes, flexible arches, far more comfortable on the balls of his feet or up a tree than flat on the ground—so that really didn’t mean anything. “Of course. Do you doubt me?”

“Hrmph.” Ooh, that wasn’t a good look. That was a look that usually meant he was in trouble. He felt suddenly bad for Kalju, who from what he’d heard had been absent the last ten years of leave-taking. “I know you.”

One of Kalju’s long white ears flicked. “So you should know I can be trusted. Sigri won’t have anything to worry about with me.” He patted Sigri’s shoulder a bit too hard, but Sigri refused to flinch.

_Be strong._ It was what you were taught, growing up in the jungle. Golmore would eat you up and keep your bones forever if you weakened. He looked up at his mother, about to reassure her—he was strong  _and_ smart, he’d be fine, and if Kalju turned out to be mean he was sure the Watcher would beat him—but fell silent at the expression on her face. He’d  _never_ seen her eyes so cold.

Her ears swiveled around before she leaned forward, as though she didn’t want anyone to overhear them. Sigri could have told her not to worry; everyone else was busy saying goodbye to their boys. Her voice was a snakelike hiss. “Is  _that_ what you say, Wolf of Barheim?”

Kalju’s eyes widened.

“Ah, you think that because we are tree-speakers we don’t hear anything of the outside world. You think because Dalmasca is far, we don’t know what goes on there. You have left the Wood _alone,_ Kalju.” Sigri paled. Even the oldest and smartest hunters didn’t go out alone; it was why they even had the leave-taking, when boys of the Whispering Stars left to join the wind-tracers on their hunts through the trees. The numbers had to be kept even, so everyone had a partner. “By all rights, you shouldn’t even be here. If my mother knew—“

“It is the Watcher who determines which man may take students.” Kalju lifted his head, light catching gold in his long, tangled braids and drawing the eye to the claw tattoos on his cheeks. “And I have passed his assessment. If you were going to object, you should have done so earlier.”

Hjordis  _growled._ For a moment Sigri was afraid she’d hit him, but then she closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “...No. No objections. But I will have a few words in private with my son before you take him.”

Kalju let go of Sigri’s shoulder, withdrawing to a safe distance. “As you wish.”

Sigri blinked as his mother knelt in front of him, voice low. Up close, he realized that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Sigri. Beloved child of my heart. Never, ever forget the ways of the Wood, the things Grandmother and the elders have taught you. Even if—even if your training takes you far from the trees, understand? Some things are too important to ever forget.” There was a watery attempt at a smile. “Like the fact that your mother loves you very, very much.”

He hugged her hard, burying his face in her hair. “...Love you too, mama. Don’t worry about me!”

Flutes and drumbeats echoed through the village—the sign that the wind-tracers were moving out. Reluctantly, he let go and stepped back. Kalju was waiting for him. 

It was the last time he saw his mother.


	15. Ache (Ritanelle Soleil)

There were things Rita knew that she would never get back.

Loving parents. A culture she’d grown up in that hadn’t been imposed on her under golden banners. A history stretching back eons, rivers of blood connecting her to generations of her people over and under the earth. A heritage that was more than cobbled-together recipes and half-remembered superstitions—a heritage that _lived,_ as its people lived. 

The Serpent’s Heart tried, of course. There had turned out to be around three dozen of them, maternal relations ranging from her ancient great-uncle to a cousin of barely ten who was utterly fascinated by her tales of the Scions. They made her feel welcome, and they were always willing to teach her more about Gelmorra, but there were so many gaps. So much knowledge that had been lost, that had only been handed down in fragments. Even with her Echo— _a blessing from Hydaelyn_ , her great-uncle had called it, and  _a double-edged sword,_ she’d corrected him—there were simply too many things they’d never know about their ancestry.

She sat in the communal baths, surrounded by her female cousins (she had a  _family;_ she was never going to get over that), and tilted her head back to look up at the crystals embedded, starlike, in the ceiling.  _Who put them there? Did they look up like this and feel so peaceful?_

“You look pensive.” Glastinelle, third cousin once removed, leaned on the rocks next to her. She was gray rather than Rita’s alabaster, but they had the same brown hair. “You alright there?”

She gestured at the ceiling, trying to find words for what was running through her head. “’S just...do you ever get sad, living here? Knowin’ that we’ve lost so much?” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Knowin’ that this place used to be great?”  _That there were kings and queens in the caverns here—aye, and common folk too, all laughing and playing and living their lives; that we, the Serpent’s Heart deepcroft, tended to their spirits and kept their gods safe for them. That now even the names of our gods are dust and ashes._

Glastinelle splashed her lightly. “’Used to’? What’s this ‘used to’? We are still great, I’ll have you know!” She huffed at her, mock-angry, but her twitching ears gave her amusement away. “C’mon, what’s it that Grandfather always tells you?”

Rita felt the pain in her heart ease. “...Man’s not dead while his name’s still spoken.”

“ _Exactly._ So! Are we not then Duskwights? Do we not say the names of Galvanth, Glastinelle the First, Iorwenne the Builder? And don’t we have _you_ now, to show us all the hidden pasts of the stones at our feet?” Glastinelle grinned at her. “What’s there to be sad about?”

“...Nothing. Nothing at all.”


	16. Lucubration (Shinju Toyotama)

“Now, _I_ think if we lean a little heavier on the N65 harmonics—“

“Are you mad? You’re mad. You know it’ll destabilize the matrix!”

“Not if we add a counterweight! See, here, if we add to these aetheric vibrations _here_ we have to put something on these other ones _here_ —“

“Malachite dust? I’m sure we can requisition some from the labs.”

“But then we have to work _in_ the labs.”

A shudder went through the room. Shinju looked up from her assignment, watching her roommates for a moment. P’tenjhari and Maelline were working on the same group project, hard-coding an emerald carbuncle from scratch. While they each had carbuncles of their own, of course, it was good to make more. Their focal point—a raw emerald the size of Shinju’s palm—spun gently in the middle of a circle of aetheric runes, awaiting their gemsmith’s tools. She frowned, studying the equations as they unspooled. “Hmmm…”

Maelline ignored her, ears flicking as she prodded a spinning line of numbers. “This is close, but we’ll need to bind it with something if we want it to be _really_ effective. You know ‘close’ won’t cut it.”

Shinju cleared her throat. Neither of them noticed. P’tenjhari was fiddling with something on another length of the aetheric thread, muttering to herself. Her tail was starting to puff up, which was never a good sign. As Shinju watched, her pupils slowly dilated.

She bit her lip, blood welling up when her fangs scraped a bit too hard. It wasn’t her project. _Don’t be nosy, Shinju,_ whispered her mother’s voice in her head. She shouldn’t interfere. _They won’t learn if you hold their hand,_ growled the memory of her father.

She said, “Try titrate of green jade on the basal r-72 harmonics, and divide the results by three.”

P’tenjhari’s head went up. “Jade! Shinjuju, you’re a genius! I’ll go get some!”

She all but zoomed out, leaving them blinking in her wake. Maelline flashed her a grin. “We have the best roommate ever.”

“P’tenjhari is very nice—“

Maelline threw a pillow at her. “I meant you!”

She wondered if it was possible to catch fire from blushing too hard. Her parents’ voices tried to hiss through her mind, but it was easier now to push them away. After all, she wasn’t in Sui-no-Sato anymore. She was in Limsa, and her friends wanted her to stay.


	17. Fade (Portia Brewster)

She never thought she’d walk these streets again. Nothing is the same as when she’d left.

Then again, it’s been eight years. People have died or moved away or simply changed their habits, and she sees nobody who might recognize her. (It’s supposed to be a good thing, with her spying for the Alliance under a fake backstory and a fake name, but she takes one step, and another, and expects every minute to hear a glad cry of _Portia!_ from a long-missed friend.) The shop on the corner that used to sell newspapers and cigarettes is a bookstore now; she wonders if everything still smells of tobacco. There’s still a pushcart vendor on the sidewalk, but it’s a man selling shoes instead of a woman hawking baked popotoes and hot sandwiches. Even the graffiti is different.

She holds her head high, breathes in (still the same smells, snow and ceruleum and the grime of a thousand smokestacks), and keeps walking. She’s a ghost in her own skin. Here, there can be no Portia bas Gallius. Here, she is Renata bas Fulvus, unattached socialite with a well-bred dog and a keen interest in new metal alloys. She’s contoured her face, dyed her hair, and adopted a smooth, deferential stance. Today she’ll make her report to her handler (a man who gives his name only as Drusus, as Eorzean as she isn’t), meet up with Audentis to compare their days, and retire to plan their next move. She won’t falter. She won’t—

She turns a corner onto a main thoroughfare. It’s crowded, but it’ll be a shortcut home. And then she sees the sign, and it’s like being slapped.

_Tirus Family Hairdressers and Salon_

One breath. Another. Another. The cold air is a knife in her chest.

 _Run._ She could do it. It’s just across the street. Cross the asphalt, push the door open like she did a million times in her youth, hear the little bell ring as she steps inside. Listen to the chatter fall silent as her aunts and cousins realize who’s come in, who’s come _home._ See her mother’s face as she looks up and—

And—

_(My blood, my heart, you’ve come home! Oh, I missed you so.)_

_(Traitor! Betrayer! You’re no daughter of mine!)_

_(You can’t be my daughter. My daughter is dead.)_

She closes her eyes. Chokes back a sob.

Turns and fades back into the crowd.


	18. Panglossian (Q'sevet Tia)

_On the road leading away from the Thanalan racetracks, two Seeker brothers talk._

“Well, _I_ think that went well.”

“Sev, you lost. Not only did you lose the race, we’re out...hmm, how much gil? Oh, right. _More than we can afford._ Do you know what kind of look Master Briardionne’s gonna give you when I tell him?”

“You’re not going to.”

“Yes the hells I am! He deserves to know why you’ll only be coming home to take advantage of the free food—unless you’ve got some other grand idea to feed yourself? He’ll give you the _disappointed face.”_

“Naaah. See, it’ll work out! Sure, Seris didn’t put on a great showing, but did you see the Ul’dahn bloke in the crowd watchin’ us?”

“I was too busy trying to pick you out of the dust cloud, sorry.”

“Arsehole. Anyway. That bloke—Hyur, with all the rings?—I was talkin’ to him after the race, like, an’ he says I’ve got potential. Apparently Seris has _fantastic_ conformation—which I knew, but it was nice to hear him say. He reckons he’d be proud to sponsor me.”

“Uh...huh.”

“Whaaat?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out what his angle is.”

“Kerahn. Dearest of all my brothers. Do you _ever_ look on the bright side? Ever?”

“Somebody has to be realistic! What’s _he_ getting out of this?”

“You are no fun at all.”

“I’m waiting.”

“...I think it’s just a chance to sponsor an up-and-coming jockey. He likes to speculate on things like that.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be watching him.”

“You’re too suspicious! Besides, he ain’t hard on the eyes—“

“That. _That right there_ is why I worry about you!”

“Pfft. Rude. I have some sense!”

“...I think you gave it all to your bird.”

“Sorry, can’t hear you! Only good thoughts from now on.”

“But—“

“ _Good thoughts.”_


	19. Where the Heart Is (Gantsetseg Bayaqud)

Gangos wasn’t a bad place to set up her yurt. True, the sand had made finding her footing a bit precarious—and it got everywhere, so she had to sweep daily—but it wasn’t too much worse than Thanalan, and infinitely better than the Burn. At least the air had life to it, and the constant bustle of people heading to and fro through the encampment was lively rather than flat and irritated. And there were absolutely  _no_ giant sand worms. She’d definitely slept in worse conditions.

She couldn’t sleep now. 

True, it was relatively quiet. True, the air was cool. True, the opening at the center of her roof showed endless stars. But her bed was empty, and so she couldn’t rest. She tossed and turned, flopped in the center like a starfish, curled all four limbs and her tail around her largest pillow. It didn’t help. _Nothing_ was helping. She’d left West Wind in Revenant’s Toll and Ehyai in Rhalgr’s Reach, so she couldn’t even pet them until the star maidens sent her dreams.

She sat up, propped her elbows on her knees, and swept her gaze around her yurt. It was a large dwelling—Bayaqud yurts had to be, even those meant for women who hadn’t taken husbands yet—but normally it felt small. Cozy. Comfortable. Normally there were Alan’s clothes spilling out of a chest _there,_ and his gunblade resting against the wall _there_ next to her piece of Ixion’s horn, and the faint hum of magitek was accompanied by his soft breathing next to her. She would wake up to him starting breakfast if he felt industrious, or to lazy caresses on slower mornings. But he was on the other side of the world, helping to take down whatever the Empire was throwing at them on that front, and so she was alone.

Nhaama’s  _tits,_ she missed him.

Her linkpearl lay on a chest next to her bed. It wouldn’t be too late in Gyr Abania, would it? She  _could_ call him, listen to his voice, tell him…

_I love you._

_I pray to the gods every night for you._

_I can’t sleep without you next to me._

She blew out a harsh breath and flopped down amidst her sheets, slapping her tail roughly against the bedframe.  _No. He’s a busy man. And I’m stronger than that. I can wait until morning, and a sensible hour._

Her yurt was empty. Her bed was empty. She kicked her pillow to the floor, rolled over on her stomach, and buried her head in the soft one on Alan’s side of the bed. It still smelled like him.

_No matter how much I miss home._


	20. Ishgardian Flirtations (Evrard Briardionne)

It’s a spur of the moment decision, really. Evrard is restless, and Busari is back from a too-short mission that’s left him with far too much excess energy. And it’s been much, much too long since they’ve done it. Maybe now Evrard won’t completely embarrass himself. (A rapier dropped on his foot. A spell singing his eyebrows off. Worse ways he hasn’t discovered yet.)

“Spar with me.”

There isn’t space inside, so they have to take themselves to the front yard. Evrard’s never been more grateful for their location; they’re far enough out of the way of most foot traffic to avoid attracting any curious onlookers (or worse, people trying to offer _advice._ He _hates_ people who think they know the ways of red magic but can’t actually tell a fleche from a zwerchhau, and the less said about those who think Busari, as a spear-carrier, must be a simple Gridanian-style lancer the better.) The scrubby grass crunches under their boots as they step out, and he takes a moment to center himself. His rapier is a reassuring weight at his side.

And then he lifts his sword and his head, and fixes his lover in his sights.

Busari is a glory to behold. He always is, all steel and spikes and power. He’s not in full armor, but the loose tunic is just as good a sight with the way it drapes over his solid frame. And he’s smiling as he readies his practice spear. “By your word.”

He counts off inside his head. _One. Two. Three._

“Now!”

Busari lunges, and the world slows. They both know to pull their punches, but it takes all Evrard has to keep moving, to stay at range—and here’s where he begins to regret his choice of weapon, for one cannot cast spells with a spear in their face, but getting far enough away to focus his aether means sacrificing the ability to bring his rapier to bear. Still, the chance to think on his feet is exhilarating.

_Step. Turn—there, an opening—damn, he’s parried me. Back and circle and_ back _—breathe—_

Inhale. Exhale. A scintillating burst of magic, blinding but harmless.

Busari staggers back, and Evrard strikes.

He’s panting, hair in his face, sweat making his shirt unpleasantly clingy. His voice comes out rough. “Do you yield?”

Busari swallows hard. A tiny drop of blood wells up where the blade rests at his throat. “I do.”

He breathes out slowly, calming his racing heart. Belatedly, he remembers to lower his sword. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“ _Once.”_

And then Busari is laughing, and he’s smiling back.

His lover really is amazing.


	21. Foibles (Tiber Gallius, Hoary Boulder)

“Come _on_ , Gallius.”

Of all the things that surprised him about joining the Scions, forming an actual friendship with any of them was near the top of the list. He’d expected to be shunned despite his best efforts, but had dutifully put himself out there anyway; they could insult his country and his heritage all they liked, but he wouldn’t have it said that a son of the Gallii was _rude._ So he’d smiled and spoken courteously (or _tried_ to, at any rate; courtesy in a well-bred man of Garlemald apparently made you sound like a textbook to Eorzeans) and done the heavy lifting so less physically-gifted people wouldn’t have to, and somehow it had actually paid off. Hoary Boulder was big, cheerful, loud, and reminded him so sharply of Portia that it couldn’t help but make him laugh sometimes.

And they were going to cheer on a few sparring matches outside the north gates just as soon as Tiber was ready. He gestured illustratively at his closet. “I am not _dressed.”_

Hoary Boulder snorted. His shoulders took up the width of the doorway, which was very distracting. “What’s that you’re wearing, then?”

Tiber looked down at himself. Collared shirt (white), trousers (black), sensible low boots (black, and hadn’t finding _those_ been a chore; just because thighboots were en vogue didn’t mean you had to wear them _all the time,_ surely), and suspenders (also black). He supposed he was, technically, dressed. For an Eorzean. The shirt was a little too tight and the trousers were a little too short, but they’d been all he was able to afford now. His days of a decent clothing budget were over. For the Emperor’s sake, he wasn’t even wearing a proper undershirt. “Well, I cannot go out like _this.”_

Back to perusing his closet, ignoring Hoary theatrically rolling his eyes behind him. Once, he would have had as many fine waistcoats as there were days in the month; now, he was down to three. All of them were secondhand, and none were quite as well-fitted as he would have wanted. The gray pinstripe was too serious and the black was too heavy, but the deep red would do. He shrugged it on and reached for his hat.

His  _one_ hat. Besides keeping the sun off his face, it would hide his third eye. He didn’t especially want to ruin the day with a fight.

Hoary remarked, “Y’know nobody’ll give you trouble here. Ain’t it too hot for a hat?...and a waistcoat, too, come t’ think of it? You’ll be sweatin’ like a pig.”

Logically, the man was right. Emotionally…

He  could see himself standing in the open, shucked from his steel shell, with no Vivian to rain fire or Q’yala to rip him from the jaws of death. It was far too easy to picture the crowd turning on him. A few extra layers of cloth wouldn’t save him, but they made him feel better—not to mention substantially less naked. How Eorzeans walked around in so little clothing was a mystery he’d decided was better appreciated than answered.

He slipped his cigarette case into his pocket and flashed Hoary a grin. “It is nothing I cannot handle. Shall we?”


	22. Argy-bargy (Tiphanie Mercer)

“—You honorless son of a guivre!”

Tiphanie Mercer stood in the doorway of the House of Commons, tray of dubious tea in hand, and watched as another budgetary meeting descended into chaos. And they’d been doing so well these past few months, too—only the usual volume of shouting, and only one physical altercation where nobody had even broken anything (though Madame Guilain’s favorite gown would _never_ be rid of that jam stain.) It seemed that the matter of the Firmament budget was finally coming to a head.

Madame Tempscire motioned her over. As always, she gave off the perfect image of a stern, hardened old woman until you saw the fondness dancing in her eyes for her assistants. “There you are, girl.”

Papers were duly shuffled out of the way so Tiphanie could set her tray down. For a moment they were silent, watching the argument between Masters Lamontain and Pierresquentaille rise in pitch and intensity. Tiphanie ventured a slow sip of tea—as expected, no amount of sugar or cream had improved the taste. “What set them off, Madame?”

“Stonemasonry budgets.”

“Is that not Lefebvre’s purview?”

“Apparently not entirely.”

Pierresquentaille grabbed Lamontain by the collar. Tiphanie felt her own ears pin back. “Should we, ah...should we stop them?”

Madame Tempscire pushed her spectacles up, glowering at both her fellow representatives. “I think we may allow _one_ punch.”

One punch was thrown, hard enough to snap Lamontain’s head to the side. Tiphanie winced. Pierresquentaille’s friends cheered. She saw gil change hands throughout the room. But then Pierresquentaille was pulling his fist back again, and next to her Madame Tempscire stood up like the slow unfurling of a war standard.

Her voice sliced through the room like a spear-tip. “Gentlemen.”

Pierresquentaille punched his opponent again. Madame Tempscire took a slow, deep breath and gestured Tiphanie to her feet. “Miss Mercer, if you would.”

She spun her wand out of its holster and brought the wind to bear. Where Madame Tempscire’s censure didn’t reach, an icy breeze did the job.


	23. Shuffle (Erasmus eir Niveus)

_He cuts the deck._

(A voice like winter. The faint swish of an impatient tail along the floor. “Eir Livy, report.”

“We have leads on the locations of the insurgent base, Captain. Should we move?” He sounds like a hound straining at the leash, just like all the rest of them.

“Hmmm…not yet. Set eir Luxus on their supply lines. Starve them a bit first.”)

_He shuffles the deck._

(A distant, ragged voice. “Please—I already told you, I don’t know— _agh!”_ Something sizzles. The screams rise. It goes on for a long, long time. Well, the bloke shouldn’t have lied, and that’s that.

“Pitiful.”

“Huh. Think we need another one.”

“Bring me the next prisoner.”)

_He cuts the deck._

(“Hey, what can we bring these brats in on?” That they’re guilty of _something_ is, of course, unquestionable. The fact that the Frumentarii know about them means they can’t be innocent. And the Frumentarii know _everybody._

That’s enough for the rest of the room to start volleying suggestions. It’s a fun game to play, if you enjoy your job. “Should be able to get ‘em on loiterin’ with malicious intent.”

“Or dodging curfew!”

“Or littering!” That’s with a bark of laughter, sneering and mean and secure in the knowledge that _they_ won’t be the one doing the paperwork.)

_He shuffles the deck._

(The door opens, letting in a blast of cold air. A raucous voice—a friend, if he had any here—calls, “Ave, Ras, you gonna play cards or just stare at the deck all night? Deal me in!”

His own voice, rusty with disuse. “Sure, sure, hold yer ‘bos.”)

_He cuts the deck again._

_And if a sour feeling coils low in his gut, well, a beer and a few smokes will wipe it away. He’s only here to finish out his shift, and the_ _y don’t pay him to think._


	24. Beam (Rrisya Otombe)

She doesn’t fight for justice, though her people cry out from under Gridania’s boot and she gives them as much room to breathe as she can. If she worked for justice’s sake, she might give into despair at the enormity of the task before her—for though she would never abandon her work, she knows that her children’s children’s children will still be fighting the same fight she does. _You do not have to end the_ _war_ _, but you_ _are not free to lay down your blade_ _._ She wants a better world for them.

She doesn’t fight for vengeance, either. And it would be easy, _so easy,_ to fight for vengeance. Every time she sees her people’s blood spilled, every time another Keeper or Duskwight hurries through the market with averted eyes and fear in their step, she feels her blood boil. _Slay them. Slay them all, and free your people to dance through the night._ The Otogandha god within her, cousin and ancestor both, screams their fury whenever she draws her lance. If she sought vengeance in earnest, she would drench the Twelveswood in Gridanian blood.

Nor does she fight for strength, such as is prized by her sun-worshipping allies and even some of her own people. Spoken die easily enough in ambush, and it’s no show of power to stab a man in the back. If she’s faced with a fair fight, she’s already lost.

No, there’s a very simple reason why she does what she does.

“ _Riss!”_

It’s in Riin’s shriek of joy when her eldest sister comes through the door. It’s in her mother’s pleased tail-flicks and her father’s strong hugs. It’s in her father’s mother’s eyes, warm and proud. It’s in the warm, wrinkled hands of her mother’s mother, her _Matriarch,_ clasping hers with the surety that she will carry on their traditions.

The clink of gil on the table, the relief that courses through her veins at the knowledge there will be one less Wailer to harass them—that’s all a bonus. She fights for the happiness of her people, and that’s all there is to it.


	25. Wish (Shinju Toyotama)

During the new year, her people write their wishes on silk strips and throw them outside the wards, to let the sea carry them where it will. It’s good luck to find the strips later, washed clean of ink and twisted into fishing nets. But she has no silk here, and the ocean isn’t the same one she grew up in. To use paper might offend the kami, but it’s all she has. In Kugane, she knows, there will be fireworks. At home, there will be bells and drums and the entire town turning out for the seadragon dance. Here, there’s just her in her only good suikan. The docks are very quiet this late at night; save for the Doman and Hingan immigrants, nobody is celebrating the turn of the year tonight. 

She stands at the edge of the water, toes hanging over the end of the pier, and throws out the first strip emblazoned with her best calligraphy. It had taken no thought, that wish.

_I wish for academic success._

Isn’t that why she’s here, after all? Half a world away, under the sun, leaving behind her family and friends? For knowledge? She can’t bring herself to regret any decision that’s brought her here, but she prays—prays as she never has in her life—that it will pay off. When  ~~ if ~~ she returns to Sui-no-Sato, she’ll be the first arcanist the waters have ever known. (The onmyoji are close. Close, but not the same. She thinks they’d view her as blasphemous. She thinks she doesn’t care.) She throws out another strip. 

_I wish for loyal and true friendships._

This one, she’d agonized over for a bell. It felt almost like a betrayal. Did she not have friends at home? Did she not have a betrothed who was probably still waiting for her? But then she’d remembered (friends who shunned and dismissed her, a betrothed who loved only her parents’ shop and would never look in her direction even if she’d wanted him to) and set brush to paper with a calm heart.

_I wish for good health._

There’s nothing selfish about that, at least on the surface. Everyone wishes for good health. But she thinks of why she wants it—to dance under the sunlight, to eat local food without illness, to wear the beautiful, heavy dresses they wear up here—and feels rebellious anyway. 

_I wish to be respected._

And this is the one that’s twisted her gut for days. Was she not respected back in Sui-no-Sato? Did the villagers not smile and nod and cry,  _There’s our Shinju, so studious, such a good girl_ when she passed? Did they not all say she could have sat for a position in the palace, if only she hadn’t been the inheritor to the Toyotama jewelcrafting business? Surely, she’d had respect aplenty. Surely, nobody had treated her with cruelty. (Unless she talked back. Unless she spoke out. Unless she raised her head towards the sun and swam until she broke the surface. Unless she refused to stay in her oyster’s shell, a good little pearl.) She ought not to expect more.

But in Limsa Lominsa, her friends listen when she talks. Her teachers praise her effort and cleverness, not just her memorization. Call her greedy, call her selfish, but she will not give that up. 

Four wishes are a bad omen, she knows. She should have left it at two or rounded it out to six. But she was born on the fourth day of the fourth month, screaming into the world during an earthquake that set all the city’s bells to ringing, and  _she’s_ never felt any ill luck from the number. Maybe it will help her here. Maybe, in this foreign tide, the gods will hear her prayers.


	26. When Pigs Fly (Ritanelle Soleil, Alisaie Leveilleur)

“So you had a dog?”

It wasn’t something she would’ve expected of Alisaie, honestly. _Fierce,_ yes. _Brave,_ certainly. _A dog person_...no. She seemed more like the sort of woman who’d be fond of cats. Or chocobos. Something more independent, at any rate. But here she was in the middle of Journey’s Head, contentedly feeding aether to a porxie familiar named after a hound, and Rita was so curious she could burst.

Alisaie nodded up at her. “We _have_ a dog, yes—though goodness, he must be very old by now. Grandfather got him for us when we were little!”

Rita couldn’t help but smile. Louisoix, hero of Eorzea and Archon of Sharlayan, sounded like he would also have been a wonderful grandfather. She wondered what it was like. Gods knew her father’s father had died before she could have gotten to know him, and as for her mother’s...well. She’d never met him. In her more uncharitable moments, she’d given serious thought to the idea of her mother having been sired by dust and cobwebs. “I never got to have pets growing up. What’s Angelo like?” She glanced at Alisaie’s familiar. “The dog. Not the flying piglet.”

Angelo-the-porxie made an annoyed-sounding grunt, and Alisaie laughed. “I think you hurt his feelings!”

Indeed, its floppy ears were drooping even more than they usually did. Feeling contrite, she reached over and patted its nose. “Ahhh, wee beastie, I didn’t mean t’ call you a flying piglet! I’m sure you’re just the best familiar anyone could ever ask for.”

It oinked, and she grinned at Alisaie. “Alright, but. The dog. Tell me about the dog!”

Alisaie, laughing, told her all about the dog.


	27. Mater Materna (Portia Brewster, Tiber Gallius, Julia cen Gallius)

Julia cen Gallius—Julia Tirus, now that she was nearly twenty years a widow and living far from Garlemald—was not a violent woman. Of course she’d been trained in _basic_ combat techniques, as all children of the Empire were, and of course she could _theoretically_ fight to defend herself and her family if it came to it, but she hoped dearly that she would never have to. Fighting was for battles far away, for trained soldiers and great generals. It wasn’t for a fifth-generation hairdresser with no ambitions other than managing her family’s salon and bringing up her children to be good and kind people. Blood made her nauseous, and the idea of actually physically harming another person was terrifying.

And then her daughter—her _daughter!_ Portia was alive! By the Emperor, she would have a statue raised of Loren bas Audentis for bringing her back to her—had taken her hands and drawn her close, and told her _Garlemald is not safe, Mama, come to Eorzea with me._

Of course she’d gone. How could she not? It was her daughter, restored to her by the greatest of good fortune after too many years in that savage land. Only death would separate her from her family now, and if they were in Eorzea, that was where she’d be. Leaving the salon and her sisters behind broke her heart, but so too did the fighting in the streets of the capital. (Again. Fighting _again._ In the name of the Emperor, were there no clear and legal rules for succession in this country? Did all the sons die out suddenly?) She would be safer in Eorzea. They all would be.

Oh, but it was a strange land. Warmer and drier across the mountains in Gyr Abania, with buildings of pink and brown stone instead of white edged and rimmed with steel, flat-topped instead of steepled to shed the snow. People wore strange clothes and carried stranger weapons, speaking a language that fell flat on her ear even after years of needing to know it for work. But it had her son in it, so it couldn’t be all bad.

When she arrived, she found him injured. Oh, he said it was fine—as though  _any_ injuries could ever be fine, when it was her son!—but she saw the burns. Saw how they curled over his chest and shoulder, down into his armpit and up to the base of his throat. Saw how someone had, very clearly, tried to make a  _design_ out of it.

She kept her voice even. She was very proud of herself for keeping her voice even. When Portia folded her fingers around her hand, she squeezed until the bones ground together. Her daughter, brave and strong woman that she was, didn’t even flinch. “Who did that to you, my blood?”

Portia added, “If you’re trying to protect someone, don’t.”

Tiber took a breath. Let it out. Took another one.

By the time he finished telling the tale, only sheer rage kept her on her feet. Her son—her kind, funny, loyal son, who loved music and theater and animals—had been  _tortured._ Even if she hadn’t had eyes to see and a heart to feel, even if she hadn’t already been watching the writing on the wall, she would have declared a vendetta against the Empire for that alone. They had  _hurt her child._ She was going to find Temira eir Harenata, and she was going to  break every bone in her body.

She turned to leave. She knew where the Reach’s airship landing was from here.

“Mama?” Portia, concerned. Tiber had sunken into his own head, shaken from recounting what had been done to him, and she’d moved to comfort him where Julia had—had been _unable_ to, too wrapped up in her own mounting fury. Now she stroked her brother’s hair, but her eyes were on her mother.

Julia couldn’t meet her eyes. If she did, she’d break. She fixed her gaze at a point in the far wall, the same way Cicer had announced his assignment on the Agrius. They’d had to bury his empty casket. She wondered if her gens would bury her the same way—if they’d bury her at all, or if they’d declare her  _damnatio memoria_ and strike her from the records. “I’m going back to Garlemald. They will  _die_ for this.”

“Mama!” Now both her children were upset. Tiber broke away from his sister, all but scrambling out of the bed to grab his mother’s hands. “Mama, _no._ They’ll—we’ll take care of it, the Scions and I. Capsari and Q’yala—you haven’t met them, but they’re incredible, they won’t let the Empire take me again. You have to stay here where it’s safe, you can’t take down the Frumentarii by yourself!” He took a breath, and she realized he was close to tears. “I can’t lose you.”

When Portia came up to hug her and Tiber pulled them both into his arms, heedless of how much that must surely hurt, she finally let herself cry. Once they’d purged all the regret, the sorrow, the _anger,_ they could start to heal.

Even if she still did very much want to commit murder, she knew she wasn’t alone.


	28. Irenic (Gantsetseg Bayaqud)

Gantsetseg of the Bayaqud isn’t used to peace. Nobody who grows up on the Steppes is, really; there is always livestock to watch or weapons to maintain or children to herd away from the sharp objects. Even when there are no threats, at home she’d still be weaving cloth or seeing who might be up for a wrestling match. In Eorzea, if she’s not fighting there’s not really anything else to do. She could wander around the city, she supposes. Since the Summer Wind unloaded her in Limsa (Captain Iyrnbryda had _hugged_ her, and she almost hadn’t wanted to let go) she’s mostly bounced between the Adventurer’s Guild and the gates. Apparently they’re so hard up for warm bodies to thin out the local wildlife they’ll even take a Xaela with a shaky grasp on Common, so long as she can string a bow.

(She can. It’s the one thing the ironmen—the  _Garleans_ —haven’t taken from her.)

But today they don’t have work for her, and she faces a peaceful day. It’s enough to make her want to pick a fight in the Drowning Wench just so she won’t have to deal with her own thoughts. Instead of doing that, however, she gets to her feet and slips out of her inn room. Maybe the boardwalk will have something for her to spend her handful of copper gil pieces on. 

...It has a  _lot_ of things for her to spend her hard-earned gil on. She passes clothing merchants, jewelry stalls, folks selling food she can’t even name. All want her custom, but she refuses to make eye contact. An idea’s been taking shape in her head, one that solidifies as she walks.  _I need a hobby. I need something that will last. Something that will distract me from…_

(Blood. Twisted metal. Screaming.)

She shakes her head and continues on. Maybe she should apply at the Fisher’s Guild—no, too much waiting. Leatherworking, maybe? She knows how to do that. But she’s too good at it; her mind can wander while her hands work. 

At the end of the boardwalk, in the shade of a tattered awning, she finds her answer. An ancient lalafellin woman is kneeling on a mat, colorful boards spread out around her and filled with...at first she thinks it’s embroidery, until she draws closer.  _Paper._ Impossibly thin strips of colored paper, coiled and spun around themselves to form designs that stand out from the page. Here and there she catches the depth of shadows, the glint of gold leaf. It’s  _beautiful._

The old woman doesn’t notice her approach. She’s bent over another board, curling paper with the edge of a knife and pressing the crimson strip into a half-outlined bird’s feather. With the curls arrayed over its shoulders, it looks almost like the designs the Bayaqud use for the edges of blankets. Longing for home—for her parents’ yurt, for the smoke of the fires, for the sheep bleating softly to each other across the plains, for the jangle of horses’ harnesses—hits her like a physical blow, and for a moment she’s afraid she might cry.

To cover it up, she points at the nearest board—flowers overlaid on top of an impression of a field—and asks, “What is? These?”

(Gods, she hates her accent.)

The old woman twitches in surprise, looking up at her through thick spectacles. Gantsetseg feels the weight of her scrutiny and doesn’t like it; she’s clearly not sure what to make of her at first. Then she smiles, soft and warm and so much like her own grandmother had. “Why, ‘tis paper quilling, dear. They’re all for sale, and you’re welcome to watch me work on the next batch!”

She sits down on the warm wood, curling her tail around her feet. Her world becomes a thin-bladed knife and thin lines of color on white; she can barely breathe as she sees how it all comes together, each quill adding to the whole.

When she finally leaves she hasn’t thought of black iron in bells, and she’s holding a quilled sheet of a bird in flight.


	29. Paternal (Pavo Rabanastre)

“Sleep.”

Sigri of the Whispering Stars had never been this far from his village before. He wasn’t sure if they were even in the same part of the jungle. But Kalju had laid out both of their bedrolls in his brightly-painted tent, and the night was so dark that even they couldn’t see anything through the trees anymore. After some token sniffling and rolling over, he slept.

“Eat something, boy.”

Today _something_ was warm flatbread wrapped around a filling of greens, cheese, and mashed sweet popotoes; it wasn’t Sigri’s favorite food, but he wolfed it down anyway. Now in his fifteenth year, he was growing like a weed and he had found he was hungry all the time. Kalju never let him starve. True, he made him work for it—carrying messages through Dalmasca’s twisting streets, performing acrobatics on corners, all while his mind was stuffed full to bursting with the ranks and insignias of their enemies—but they always had enough gil for a meal and beds at night.

“Kill it.”

There was other work, too. Work Sigri took to like a bird to flight, surpassing all Kalju’s expectations. He hadn’t needed much exposure to the Imperials to decide he hated them, all of them; they called him _pretty_ and _exotic_ and _savage_ and refused to learn or to use his proper name, dubbing him _pavo_ after their word for the screaming blue-green jungle fowl. In his sixteenth year, he and Kalju captured one—a woman who had been amusing herself by dragging Dalmascans out on false charges and making their families watch their executions. Sigri slit her throat himself, letting Kalju paint his face with the blood of his kill as a true warrior would.

“Using their words against them, eh? Good idea.”

Sigri Miret-Moor was dead. In his seventeenth year, the man Pavo Rabanastre was born— _Pavo_ for the beautiful bird that killed snakes and woke the jungle with its cry, and  _Rabanastre_ for his new home, the place that had forged him into a weapon to do the same. He hadn’t seen Golmore in four years. With this casting-off of his name, he knew he never would again. His own mother would probably run him through if she saw him. He touched the faded grass-green arrow on his nose, marred by a spot of blood from his most recent job for the Dalmascan Resistance, and shook his head. There was no more room for regret.

“You did well.”

Praise from Kalju was rarer than snow, more precious than gold. If Pavo hoarded each word and traded them for gil, he might have enough for a single loaf of bread. But to let on that he felt he deserved such things—that he’d somehow gone above and beyond what should only be his duty—would be a mistake. Instead, he nodded and went on cleaning his knives. There was part of someone’s intestines stuck to them.

“The Resistance lies with you, now. You were...my greatest student.”

Rabanastre was falling around them. Pavo knew it would be a miracle if he saw Kalju again in this life; in case of a setback, their first priority was to scatter and regroup. In the next minute, he’d be sprinting for the waterways and Kalju would be off to wherever his own bolthole was. He prayed that the Imperials hadn’t found it first. For a long moment—too long—he was speechless. 

Something fell with an earthshaking thud above their heads, and he turned and ran without looking back.


	30. Splinter (Portia Brewster)

The children of steel are strong.

It’s established fact; though the aether running through their blood is too thin and weak to ever coalesce into fire or thunder or any of the myriad spells employed by the other races of Hydaelyn, they have advantages of their own. Their third eyes, for one—Portia has often wondered, looking at her comrades with their blank foreheads, how _any_ of them manage to survive on the battlefield without the spatial cognition that tells her how to dance across the shifting rubble before it crumbles, or feel where a blow will land the moment before a strike. She might be dead drunk, half asleep, and otherwise chemically altered, but her sense of her own limbs will never betray her.

In addition to that, no other race on Hydaelyn—except perhaps the Miqo’te, she’ll allow—has the endurance of her kind. Bred in frozen mountains and valleys so deep they only saw the sun once a year, it’s well known even in Eorzean texts that they once lived off following mammoth herds for malms, maintaining a steady pace until the exhausted beasts dropped. They don’t stop, and they don’t give up; the strength of steel is in their hearts as well. Even in these civilized times, their bodies and minds can weather any hardship and come out singing. 

And also...frankly, it is not bragging in the least to add that strength isn’t just metaphorical. Portia isn’t a biologist or a medicus, so she has no idea how it came to be that Garleans are like this—denser muscles? heavier bones?—but nevertheless she can outlift men twice her size, and no contest of pure strength will ever see her lose. When she was still a dockworker, she’d once nearly blown her cover by winning an arm wrestling match against a Roegadyn smith. She’s sure it would be even more of a rout now. When she’s angry enough, she can punch through stone.

But now the man at the Reach who looks over the training grounds has suggested she try her fists against wooden boards. _I can see you’ve had training, but you’re out of practice. Gotta recondition yerself, missy!_

She does not say, _I was an Imperial secutor._ She does not ask, _Are you calling me weak?_ She is no longer a soldier of the Empire, and if she isn’t _weak_...well, she knows she’s lost the gymnastic reflexes she once had. Breaking boards will be good for her, will help her relearn control. Putting your fist through someone’s ribcage is incredibly disgusting, actually, and the epics had never mentioned that part before her first battle. It seems like an important detail.

Eorzean monks and pugilists dance around on their feet, light and agile and ready to weave away from a return strike. She rolls her shoulders and firms up her stance, solid as the stone of her birthplace, with her soul clad in iron. She breathes—in and out, slow and steady.

Her first strike splinters the board.

Her second shatters it.


End file.
